Female's participation of economic activity is shown in M curve, that marriage and childbirth cut them off the career. This phenomenon reflects the reality that Korea's supporting system for working moms is not enough for them to continue their workin...
Female's participation of economic activity is shown in M curve, that marriage and childbirth cut them off the career. This phenomenon reflects the reality that Korea's supporting system for working moms is not enough for them to continue their working. And it also indirectly implies the difficulties that working moms would have, in case of carrying out rearing and working side by side.
The most serious problems, which working moms would experience between their work and home, are child rearing and child education. Therefore, psychological pains of working moms are huge, and their separation anxiety is expected to be very high, as they have to go to work without their young children.
As number of working moms is increasing, number of infant to be put to child care facilities is also increasing. Which means that Infant have to be separated from their mom, and adapted to new and strange environment. Therefore, infant's adjustment to child care facilities is clearly an important task for their parents and teachers, who interact directly with children.
This investigation seeks for the effects of mother's separation anxiety and rearing attitude on infant's adjustment to child care facility, to help infant to be adjustment comfortably. It also tends to offer information that can be used helpfully for children aged 1~2, who are sent to child care facilities at working places.
According to the purpose of this investigation, questions were selected as following;
1. Does mother's separation anxiety have any difference according to demographic variables?
2. What are the effects of mother's separation anxiety on infant's adjustment to child care facility?
3. What are the effects of mother's separation anxiety on her rearing attitude?
4. Does mother's rearing attitude have mediational effects on the relationship between mother's separation anxiety and infant's adjustment to child care facility?
Objects were working moms whose , aged 1~2, go to child care facilities at working places. 3 facilities in Seoul and 6 facilities in Gyeonggi-do were researched for the investigation. After the implement of survey, 326 copies of 162 pairs were finally analyzed.
For the questionnaire that investigated mother's separation anxiety, Mother's separation anxiety measure that was developed by Bok-hee Jo and Seong-Ok Park(1992). For rearing attitude, Schaefer's MBRI(Maternal Behavior Research Instrument), which was adjustment by Won-young Lee(1983) and used by Moon-Joo Bae(2004), was used as the questionnaire.
For the questionnaire that investigated infant's adjustment, PAQ (Preschool Adjustment Questionnaire) developed by Kostelink(1992) was used as a measure, which Jong-Eun Oh(2001) adjustment and Mee-Kyeong Jeon(2003) modified and improved to consider developmental characteristics of a child.
SPSS WIN 13.0 program was used to analyze the collected data. And to grasp the multilateral characteristics of data, statistical methods including frequency, percentage, average and standard deviation were used. Correlation analysis was used to find out the relationship of variables, and multiple regression analysis was used to inquire minutely on the results of correlation analysis.
Baron and Kenny(1986)'s mediational effects verification was adjustment to analyze mother's rearing attitude, that whether the attitude takes a role as a mediational variable for the relationship between mother's separation anxiety and child's adjustment.
Results of this investigation are as following;
First, the objects' level of separation anxiety was generally normal. There was no significant difference related to demographic variables of mother(age, educational standard, job) and infant(age, sex, birth order).
Mother's separation anxiety had significant difference due to her satisfaction of work life and child care facility at the working place. In other words, separation anxiety was shown lower for the group with a higher satisfaction of work life and child care facility, than the group with a lower satisfaction.
Second, it was shown that lower separation anxiety of mother positively affected infant's sociality, positive emotion, ego intensity and peer relationship during the adjustment to child care facility.
Third, lower separation anxiety positively affected affectional-autonomic rearing attitude, however, it was shown that general separation anxiety negatively affected affectional-controling rearing attitude. Also, when mother's absolute belief and value on rearing are tough, affectional-controling rearing attitude was affected positively.
Fourth, mother's rearing attitude showed a significant mediational effect on her separation anxiety and infant's adjustment. When separation anxiety controlled rearing attitude, while rearing attitude affects on the adjustment, it showed a positive effect on infant's adjustment. It implies the mediational role of rearing attitude. Therefore, affectional-autonomic rearing attitude was shown with lower separation anxiety, and affectional-controling rearing attitude was shown with higher separation anxiety. It is expected that the adjustment would become better, if these mediational variables can have bigger effects.
Limits of this investigation and advices for follow-up investigations are as following;
First, child care facilities, that were collected as objects of this investigation, were related to big business, government offices and hospitals. As the location of these organizations was limited to Seoul and Gyeonggi-do, their environment and overall level were good, and mothers' educational standards were higher than normal. Therefore, there is a limitation in generalizing the results. Follow-up investigations should extend the range of objects to get more generalized results.
Second, as separation anxiety gets lower according to the satisfaction of work life and child care facility, head and teachers of the child care facility should be educated to understand and to guide working moms and their infant.
Third, various programs and parental instructions must be applied for verifying the effects, to lower mother's separation anxiety so that infant can easily adjustment to child care facilities, and to enhance positive rearing attitude. These instructions need to be effective and helpful not only in housework and rearing, but also in understanding the actual condition and adjustment of child nursing. In addition, forums should be provided for sharing information with working moms.
Fourth, this investigation found out the effects of mother's separation anxiety and rearing attitude on infant's adjustment to child care facility. But the objects were limited to the facilities at working places. Therefore, it would be necessary to suggest comparative groups in follow-up investigation, so that the comparative analysis with the facilities at the working places can be made.
Fifth, companies must break from fragmentary supports such as child benefit, and take social responsibilities by improving workers' welfare through wider supports on rearing. If child care facilities with excellent qualities are secured, to stabilize working moms psychologically during work, it can be a very important foothold to prevent the phenomenon where parent's income decides the quality of child education.